Aloft in the Wind
by L'Otarie
Summary: Spur of the moment for Ash Wednesday. Phil reflects on where life and its Author has brought him. Oozing with Catholic goodness. Could be AU and/or OOC for some.


_**Author's note: Just something I thought up on the spur of the moment. Because authors seldom write Catholic vocation stories in fan fiction (which are like romance stories except that the characters fall in love with God), I've decided to come up with one. Sounds OOC for him, but I hope the meditation fits in with our narrator's struggles, pains and joys as he went through what he went through.**_

**Rugrats **_**owned by Nickelodeon and the (late great) Klasky-Csupo animation company.**_

ALOFT IN THE WIND

A.M.D.G.

"_Rememeber that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return_."

Stark words. No wonder "Repent and believe in the good news" is preferable now.

As I prepare myself for the morning's Ash Wednesday mass I meditate on my own insignificance, and why God called me despite that inconvenient detail. Yes, my sons, I am one of "them". A priest of Jesus Christ. A member of the Society of Jesus. An unworthy servant who tries (and succeeds with His grace) to do what his mandate does: teach the science of life to High School students in Bellarmine, and to proclaim and give the Source of Life Himself to those with eyes to see and ears to listen. And whatever else Father Provincial wants me to be doing.

I recall the day I first went off to do my research paper in Junior High about the explorers of America; Lewis and Clark, Champlain, Cartier, the whole lot of them. It just so happened I strayed upon Marquette and other Jesuit explorers, and the North American martyrs. Sure, they had their flaws as persons and as historical subjects. They were drawn into conflicts they indirectly instigated. But through it all, they stayed firm in their commitment; to the Native American tribes whose souls they were called to save. They became all things to all to save at least some. _All_ things. Including, as the Jesuit Martyrs of North America did, their very lives.

Sacrifice doesn't come easy for me. Maybe it's just because of my relationship with my fraternal twin. The fact that we were almost indistinguishable when we were young militates against a close bond with each other; we sought to distance ourselves from each other each time. Thus, I became jealous for my own space. My own identity.

And then I got called to give all to others. To _be_ for others.

By the time I presented my report on the contribution of these priests, who continued to arrive and tried to their utmost to blunt the devastation of Manifest Destiny in the 1800's, I had a nagging, though uncertain, desire to become a priest. Young arrogance it was then. But I never showed it to anyone; I was born in a so-and-so household in terms of religious observance. I only got confirmed in the faith in senior year high school. It was a five-year journey to try and escape it. Read up secretly on vocation literature and devotional literature. Arguing about why I have to bring it up a notch with Him. Jacob wrestled with God until daybreak, and was actually winning. He only let God go when he got His blessing. A bit of the same for me.

I was the joker. The other half of the de Ville twins who never grew up. Lil's younger brother. What did I want to have to do with a bunch of old hypocrites in cassocks? (Mom could be a bit cantankerous on this matter. She still is.) _What would God want to do with me?_

As I now look on the cross, vestments before me draped on the cabinet, I realize that phrase with which the Jesuit vocations director told me all those years ago, complete with a distinct Indian accent.

"_God does not call the qualified; He qualifies the called_."

Figures. He created man out from the dust after all.

The time I finally told my family about this on Christmas break, as we were shutting down the _Java Lava _with Mr. Finster for the night, I could've sworn I heard a pin drop. My parents didn't talk with me until after we got home. Lil… she knew it all along. She confronted me two years earlier when I carelessly left behind a leaflet about a vocation seminar. She was jovial then, wondering how that's gonna happen.

At that point however, when I looked at her eyes the moment we boarded the car, she knew I wasn't kidding.

My parents, Lil, my friends, they tried to ask about it and how long I was thinking about it. They tried to dissuade me, and I went along the motions of "I'll see if this is well and good for me" before they ceased talking. They should've noticed why I was going to mass on Sundays and other holy days of obligation; why I was shying away from the barbeque on Fridays. But all that is for He who sees in secret. Besides, I'm part of a mediocre lot.

Finally, although the puzzlement, annoyance and (from Mom mostly) mild hostility remained, they knew I was set on a course for the novitiate. I packed my bags and left for Pre-Novitiate after a three-month period of reflections and a battery of tests and trials. Got my biology teacher's degree, got regency to an inner-city parish aiding Spanish-speaking parishioners, got stitched up after I was mistaken for a member of a rival gang and stabbed on my side, studied at the Gregorian in Rome, and ordained after fourteen years. Darned life I led. Never regretted any of it.

I never became a father? My whole flock of students and faculty, and anyone needing a consecrated hand regard me as father. Titles aren't therefor nothing.

I don't have sex? Eh. Overrated. I've met with old couples who continue to love each other despite the lack of capacity for that. Got to learn that in a world that has unlearned what it is to truly make love.

I check my brain at the door? No. But I do have to ask why people check their hearts at the door in work, politics and other fields where a watchful conscience is needed.

As I contemplate the cross above me, as I kneel and complete my prayers before putting on the purple vestments, I reflect on how God makes what the world regards as insignificant things into something worth more than their market value. Hey, He did it with human life. He does it with the bread and wine. And He does it with you. And me. And others like me.

Dust you may be. And to dust you may head. But remember too, as the ashes are prepared for blessing: Dust is borne and carried aloft by the Great Wind into the heavens.


End file.
